SketchUp Animation - "Spiral Staircase"

One great feature of SketchUp is how fly-through or fly-over or fly-by animation could be produced on the fly. And coupled with "section plane" function one has no problem producing cool construction sequence at all.

It's been a while since I last made any animation with SketchUp. I used the spiral staircase model I made, which I also shared on that page, throw in a few sections and scenes and here's the result:

This is not a real construction or assembly sequence by all means, I made this to brush up my rusty "section-planing" skill.

Like usual, the scenes are exported as 4000x2250pix PNGs and assembled in VirtualDub and encoded using x264 codec. VirtualDub can be found here, and x264vfw here.

SketchUp Speed Modelling: A Simple Spiral Staircase [updated]

I supposed spiral staircase is one of the most popular subject in 3D modelling tutorials, however, for all the models I've done, spiral staircase is not in the list.

This is a simple spiral staircase -- with chequered plate treads welded to tees, which in turn are welded to a circular hollow section post. Balusters and railing are of circular hollow sections, too. I supposed the post should be mounted on a base plate that is bolted to a solid base.

The principle modelling process took less then 30 minutes to complete. The model of this staircase can be found in 3D Warehouse, as below.

>

Updates: I made an animation with this model, on this page.

SketchUp Animation - "Erection of a Structural Steel Staircase" [Updated]

The following is a NPR "construction sequence" of a structural steel staircase, of which I also produced a fly-through animation and some 3D renders earlier, on that page.

As this is not one of my drafting works so I don't claim the sequence is 100% by-the-book. The photo of which this 3D model based on is attached at the end of this post.

This animation has better anti-alias quality than my previous ones because I re-sized the animation to half of its original output size from SketchUp, in this case from 1440*808 to 720*405, in VirtualDub. This improved the anti-aliasing a lot.

I also export it to H.264/MP4 format (which has better quality/filesize ratio) directly from VirtualDub using this "hack" instead of converting the AVI export using third party software.

VirtualDub is a free video capture/processing software, which can be downloaded from this page.

Exterior structural steel staircase at Tesco,
Kepong Village Mall, Kuala Lumpur.

[updates]
I also uploaded the model to 3D Warehouse, click on image below to download.

I also share with you the latest rendering of this staircase.

A Structural Steel Staircase - Fly-through and Renders

The following is a NPR fly-through of a structural steel staircase.

I also uploaded some better 3D renders of the staircase. Some preliminary renders can be found on that page.

A "construction sequence" animation and the 3D model can be found on that page.

A Structural Steel Staircase (Preliminary)

The followings are some quick renders of an exterior structural steel staircase. The staircase is not part of the original building design, it was erected so people could directly access the roof top from outside of building.

The staircase design is pretty standard: UC columns and UB stringers with chequered plate treads, C-channel beams to support RHS bearers and chequered plate that form the landing, and CHS handrails and balusters.

A fly-through animation of this model is on this page, and a "construction sequence" on that page.

SketchUp Animation - Warehouse (Steel Structure Skeleton Only)

Below is a fly through animation showing only the steel structure skeleton of a warehouse.

Most if not all the standard elements in a steel structure, for instance stanchions, main trusses, purlins, bracing, fascia trusses, siderails and etc. are shown in the animation. The non-existence of perimeter drain is norm for such a structure under construction, though normally temporary ditches are dug surrounding the building for drainage purposes, they are not shown in the animation.

In this particular project, some sort of mesh partition system (non-structural) will be installed on one side of the warehouse, hence it is kind of "open" and without any brickwall or wall girt (siderails). The other three sides are of low brickwall with metal cladding wall system, hence the wall girt.

I output the animation as a series of PNG images and assembled the animation in VirtualDub. The original uncompressed output is a whooping 400Mb+ AVI file, but the anti-alias is much better than the above.

I made a couple of simplified construction sequences on that page.

SketchUp Animation - "Erection of a Shed" [Updated]

The following is an animation depicting a simplified process of erecting a steel structure shed.

I didn't detail the process of casting the foundations (the process of which can be found here). Most of the steel members are CHS (circular hollow section) and their sizes were selected based on my drafting experience.

For a simple structure like this, structural connections are mostly welding.


[updates]
I uploaded the 3D model of this animation to 3D Warehouse. Click image below to download.

Jalan Hang Tuah Pedestrian Bridge (2)

Some of the following photos have been sitting in my hard disk for a while. They were shot in mid 2010 and I've completely forgotten them until I run a full system backup recently. I'm re-posting the related illustration on top of each pic.

Click on image to enlarge, and for more info about the pedestrian bridge, see that page.

Gantry (cantilever)

This is another type of gantry. Click image to enlarge.

Gantry

These are rendering of a gantry with electronic signboard. Click image to enlarge.

Gantry (Preliminary Rendering)

Click image to enlarge.

Gantry (Illustrations)

Click image to enlarge.

Pedestrian Bridges [Updated]

The followings are conceptual visualizations of several pedestrian bridges in Brickfields and Bangsar, designed by LEOWYC Architect in August 2010.

Click image to enlarge.

[Updates]
I noticed that the antialiasing of the above illustrations is not that great so I uploaded another version with higher resolution and better anti-alias quality. Click on image to enlarge.

Illustration of a pedestrian bridge in Bangsar.

Illustration of a pedestrian bridge in Brickfields.

Illustration of a pedestrian bridge in Brickfields.

To view the list of my other pedestrian bridge illustrations, click here.

Jalan Hang Tuah Pedestrian Bridge [Updated]

The followings are architectural illustrations for a pedestrian bridge in Jalan Hang Tuah, Kuala Lumpur. LEOWYC Architect is the designer of the project, which had been completed in December, 2009. The output style is "pencil edges with whiteout border", created by Mark Paschke for "2008 SketchUp Sketchy-Edge Style Building Competition".

Click image to enlarge. To view a slideshow of the construction process, click here.

 

   

[updates]

I uploaded some photos of this pedestrian bridge, on that page.